Word Nerd

July 22, 2023

1:42 pm

I am a competitive person when it comes to board games. It is one of the reasons most of my family won’t play board games with me.

I don’t get overly competitive like I have seen in various games of monopoly, cards, dominoes, or even battleship. I remember as a kid people getting way too aggressive when someone landed on their Boardwalk with more than one hotel. That was my future tax lawyer uncle. I also remember my cousins crying over losing battleship when their last ship was sunk. I also recall a few aunts and uncles getting carried away when slamming down those dominoes as they trashed talked each other.

I have always been confident in my ability to recall words either through spelling or definition, my vocabulary has been building since my first spelling bee in the 5th grade. I love words, reading, writing, and the emotions or feelings they illicit. It is one of the reasons that I started this blog almost 8 years ago.

It is also the reason why most people do not want to play Scrabble with me either in real life or online. I have four very smart children but they hate playing Scrabble with me and sometimes my word choice would get challenged when I would play with relatives. It’s hard to beat a two letter word using a letter “x” or “z” on a triple letter or double word score, sometimes the simplest solution produces the greatest output.

I only remember these two letter words because of either previous Scrabble battles or just seeing them in a textbook while I was attending school. I sometimes have a weird ability to recall trivial details. If it is about a conversation that usually entails what the person was wearing, what they said, where we were, and what I was doing, but I have trouble remembering names. I always remember the faces just struggle with remembering names unless they did something to stand out or said something that stuck with me.

When the online game “Wordle” came out, I was having so much fun playing it with my daughter. We challenged each other every day to see who got the better score but she got busy with finishing up college then starting her new job. I lost my Wordle buddy.

I tried Words with Friends once and it was okay until the person I was playing with or against, I do not remember which, just stopped in the middle of a game and never returned. I think I like challenging myself more to discovering or finding new words instead, whether I use them or not.

I once wrote a whole poem around the word of the day “syzygy” that showed up in my email. I was inspired by the definition “a conjunction or opposition, especially of the moon with the sun or a pair of connected or corresponding things.”

It also happened to correspond with a weekly writing challenge I was participating in on Instagram. It is in my poem titled “Homage to Strong Women” 8/21/2017. I miss that content, it was always fun to read others work and challenge myself to new things but those accounts long disappeared as the pandemic began.

I have gotten off track and the purpose of this prompt.

That’s what happens when you are a self-proclaimed “Word Nerd” always talking or always thinking (probably a little Adult ADHD in there somewhere).

Have a fabulous day!

Peace, love, happiness, and good vibes, always!

Suzanne